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How to Choose a Right Plate Amplifier for Your Powered Speaker?

Recently, we have many customers sent us inquiry for a solution that choosing a suitable amplifier for their speaker. Some of them are DIY loudspeaker makers, some of them was thinking to make their passive speaker active, so that can save money rather to buy a rack amplifier.

Which plate amplifier should I use for my speaker?

Firstly, you should know different kinds of plate amplifier module.

What is plate amplifier?

Plate amplifiers are designed for use in powered speaker system. There are various kinds of plate amplifier module with different channel, power and function. Currently, Sanway Audio has produced three categories active amplifiers: One channel, two channel and three channel.

All plate amplifier with built-in DSP with MUTE, Polarity, Gain, Delay ,Limiter, Mixer, EQ, X-Over function allows the user to set up and modify the signal processing data.

Also integrated USB or RS-485 interface enable DJ or engineer to control the system via PC.

One channel plate amplifier for use in full- Range speaker and subwoofer.

To choose a suitable amplifier, you should know the power of your speaker and nominal impedance firstly, so that know how much amplifier power will you need.

A massively distorted signal can blow a speaker at lower levels much faster than a clean signal will at high levels. The bottom line is that you want to have an amplifier that can drive the speakers hard enough that you don’t need to be maxing out every part of the signal chain in order to get the music loud enough for the speakers. That’s where you start to run into messy audio and risk damaging your drivers.

You should have about 1.5 times more than nominal rated power for your top speakers and 2 about times more for your subwoofer so that you can handle the peaks associated with more dynamic tracks.

2. Connection of speaker driver

After understanding what power will you need, you may need to know how many channel of the amp do you need?

A. Full range speaker and single subwoofer.

If your speaker is full range speaker or single subwoofer, you could choose one channel plate amplifier.

C. stereo sets, composed of subwoofer and full range speaker pairs, installed in a subwoofer.

If you want to make a powered system that active subwoofer power 2 pcs passive top speaker, Sanway Audio D3 3 channel plate amplifier is the good choice.

Example: VR10&S30 line array system. We mount one D3 customized 1800W+900W+900W at 4 ohms three way class-D DSP powered amplifier module in S30 cabinet box. The 1800W channel to driver the S30, and 900W+900W two channel to driver two top VR10 Bi-amped line array speakers.

ModelVR10

Drivers1 x 10" LF / 2 x 1.75" HF

Frequency range60 - 16000 Hz

Power capacity program / peak:500 / 1000 W bi-amped LF

200 / 400 W bi-amped HF 600 / 1200 W

ModelS30

Driver2 x 15"

Frequency range35-200 Hz

Power capacity/ peaker2400/4800W

Impedance4 ohms

3. Space of the cabinet box.

If you are a speaker box maker, you could open the hole in the cabinet according to the dimension of the amplifier module.

After choosing the right power plate amplifier, you should check the size of the amp if you want to make your current passive speaker to be active. Some speaker is so compact, they may not have enough space to install a plate amplifier.

Please feel free to send us the specification of your speakers, Sanway team is glad to give you suggestion for a suitable plate amplifier.